A place where Dragonflies can come for motivation, inspiration, education, and be accepted as a Dragonfly!

The Dragonfly Forest

They have been given names such as devil’s darning needle, ear sewer, horse stinger, skeeter hawk, and the snake’s servant. Actually, Dragonflies are beneficial, peaceful, and stunning. You are a Dragonfly if you are: ADD/ADHD, dyslexic, dysgraphic, Asperger’s, NLVD, autistic…

Friday, November 24, 2017

Things I learned from Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch touched my heart and changed my life. Although he was on my list of people I admire and people I wanted to meet so I can learn from, I never had that opportunity because he passed away July 25, 2008.I still visit with Randy frequently from re-reading his books, re-watching his videos, and talking to him in the universe usually asking, “Randy, what would you do here?” or “Randy, what advice do you have for me today?”

Things I learned from Randy:

1.“It is important to have specific dreams.” The key to this isn’t knowing your dream but knowing what precisely you want from your dream. Sometimes what you think is the dream is not the real dream and people achieve this dream and are disappointed or people can’t reach this dream and therefore they quit altogether. So it is vital to know exactly what it is you are really dreaming of achieving!

2.“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.” This is sometimes a hard one but I have to remind myself that I didn’t get what I wanted and my expectations did not occur but I sure did learn a lot of lessons. Life is about lessons. When I have events that are disappointing because I did not get what I want I often ask Randy, “what was I supposed to learn from that?”

3.“When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.” This was advice to his daughter and he's right; actions really do speak louder than words so you must remember to watch the behaviors of others --they are very telling. Also, pay attention to your own behaviors because others are watching your actions and that is how you are being judged – they are not judging you by your words!

4.“Proper apologies have three parts:1) What I did was wrong.2) I feel bad that I hurt you.3) How do I make this better?”

I work hard to practice this and want my children to own their mistakes and practice this apology as well. The world would be such a better place if everyone had the courage to say they were sorry. (A Previous blog post on saying sorry).

There are many more quotes I love (some added as picture quotes for my Facebook pages – see below).

Watch Randy’s video of The Last Lecture! I promise you will not be disappointed and your life will be impacted!

(Image: photo of a metal sculptured dragonfly on a brick wall and a quote from Randy Pausch's book 'The Last Lecture' - “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.They’re there to stop the other people.” "

(Image: photo of a sun rising or setting and a quote from Randy Pausch's 'The Last Lecture' - “When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a bad place to be.You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.” )

(Image: clipart of a group of multi-racial children playing cards and a quote from Randy Pausch's book 'The Last Lecture' - “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” )

(Image: photo of a Caucasian child wearing a cape and mask with his/her fist in the air and a quote from Randy Pausch's book 'The Last Lecture' - “There’s a lot of talk these days about giving a child self-esteem.It is not something you give; it’s something you have to build.” )